pricing for photographing an event

hi everyone, looking for some suggestions on how to price an event shoot... have

only done one small one prior to this.

It's a figure skating championship event... 25-35 teams, 10-20 girls per team.

I'll be shooting each group as they come off the ice, and each skater usually

gets an 8x10 as a keepsake. Now, since I don't have the means to print on site,

and I'm not interested in getting into that... I'm thinking of sending a disc of

the finished images (2 per team I think) off to the organizer... and he can

forward each coach his team's pic... printing can be taken care of by each

coach. The cost alone on printing 450 8x10's is ridiculous... the number is so

big I can't even imagine what they'd say when I add some dough on there for me!

So... should I just price by the hour... and give them the finished images?

I would bill by the hour and deliver a DVD if it's only a one time deal. I would the following if it's something your going to continue to do; Open a SmugmugPro account. Shoot the event for a much lower hourly rate, and post the pics online for sale. Set your pricing. Sit back and make the money. They do all pricing, shopping cart, printing, and shipping. My $.02

don't be afraid to charge what its worth. Make sure you give them a price with 450 8x10s in it, including profit for yourself.

 

Sometimes printing the 8x10s will be so much of a problem for the organizers that they will be happy to have you do it.

 

I am not sure if you have a costco up there, but if you need decent quality prints dirt cheap, they usually do a good job. It might allow for $5.00 per print for you, and I think $2.00 per print cost which will make somewhere in the vicinity of the right amount of profit for a shoot of that nature.

 

two things to keep in mind: The prices I ballpark are US$, and I have no clue how that effects things in canada because I am an isolationist pigheaded american with no knowledge of the outside world, and two most labs will give a pretty significant quantity discount, so you might find that a $3.50 8x10 lab comes out cheaper when you are buying them 10 at a time.

Why would 450 8x10's be a ridiculous number? It'll be spread across 450 families. I have three kids in different sports leagues, and I watch what goes on very intently when they get their team pics taken. Not my idea of a dream job, but it pays someone's mortgage. The key of the day is organization, and secondly, organization. The kids flow through the areas (team shot, individual shot) very smoothly. How is the organizer going to know what individual is which? You need an assistant or three to help out. Wear a referee's shirt (all four of you). Have a plan for tracking which shot is whom, and on which team.

 

I pay US$11 for an 8x10 which has both the team photo on it plus an individual taken in front of a goal-themed backdrop. I can also pay US$8 for a 5x7 of just the individual. The gear requirements for taking 900 shots is not insignificant. Ice arenas are very poorly lit, so you'll need AC strobes+umbrellas, IMHO.

From my experience your not going to get an hourly rate from the event organiser they will not want to deal with getting prints printed and distribute them and deal with cash handling from individuals, your customers are the patrons not the organisers.

 

$3.50 would be way to high for a 450 volume order 8x10s, I'll print them here and wear the postage for half that but time would kill that idea.

 

Online works, we use it, but it's not as good as getting preorders just make out an order sheet (prefferably an evelop) and have parents prepay then post them out. This works great for cashflow aswell.

 

Numbering systems are a whole other kettle of fish but needless to say you want a good proven work flow here, have fun I'd jump on this gig in a second, nice volume.